(FAIRVILLE) Facing Inequalities and democratic challenges through Co-production in Cities

Progetto finanziato dall’Unione Europea – Programma Horizon Europe
Grant Agreement n. 101094991
Durata: 48 mesi
Data di avvio: 01/01/2023
Il sito ufficiale del progetto

Se il legame tra disuguaglianze e calo dei livelli di fiducia nei confronti delle istituzioni politiche della democrazia in Europa è già stato dimostrato, i vari modi in cui sia i cittadini che le istituzioni stanno cercando di affrontare queste disuguaglianze e (ri)costruire un futuro comune sostenibile rimangono poco documentati. In effetti, questa lacuna diventa ancora più pronunciata se si considerano quei tentativi che vanno oltre le forme convenzionali di partecipazione a guida statale.

In risposta a questa lacuna, l’obiettivo di Fairville è quello di documentare e proporre modelli pilota di intervento urbano che coinvolgano accademici locali, autorità, organizzazioni comunitarie, residenti e utenti nel miglioramento collettivo dei quartieri urbani svantaggiati, attraverso un approfondimento della partecipazione dei residenti e degli utenti ai processi democratici nuovi ed a quelli esistenti. L’idea che le politiche urbane non debbano essere fatte “per” le popolazioni ma piuttosto “con” loro è un potenzialmente profondo motore di trasformazione sociale e di empowerment. Tuttavia, la realizzazione di tali processi di coproduzione è spesso contrassegnata da disuguaglianze epistemiche e da relazioni di potere ineguali.

Consapevoli di questo problema, i casi pilota di Fairville (in Belgio, Egitto, Francia, Germania, Grecia, e Regno Unito, Romania, Senegal) pongono l’accento sull’esplorazione dei modi in cui ricercatori accademici, comunità locali e rappresentanti delle autorità locali possono lavorare insieme per ridurre le asimmetrie di potere e di informazione che esistono tra di loro. Raggruppati attorno a tre temi principali – le disuguaglianze ambientali, le disuguaglianze legate all’edilizia abitativa e alla pianificazione urbana e le disuguaglianze legate ai rischi climatici – e spaziando dalla co-diagnosi alla co-progettazione e all’intervento, i progetti pilota saranno condotti come ricerca-azione e includeranno l’implementazione di meccanismi di osservazione, capitalizzazione e co-valutazione. I risultati di questi casi pilota saranno ampiamente diffusi alle istituzioni e ai cittadini interessati, per incoraggiare trasferimento di politiche e sensibilizzazione.

Il progetto Fairville, coordinato dal CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique – France), vede coinvolti 12 beneficiari e ulteriori altri 6 partecipanti, che nel loro insieme hanno sede in Belgio, Egitto, Francia, Germania, Grecia, Italia, Regno Unito, Romania, Senegal.

K&I è responsabile del Work Package 1: “Data collection for inequalities’ impact analysis on political participation and democratic quality”.

News

The final event in the Fairville project’s “Dialogues in Co-production” series, titled “Enabling Meaningful Urban Coproduction at Scale – Key Learnings”, will take place on Thursday 24 September 2026, at 3.00 pm. The dialogue will bring the series to a close by reflecting on key learnings from the project’s experiences of community-led urban coproduction and on the opportunities and challenges of taking meaningful coproduction to scale. Register for the dialogue. The Dialogues in Co-production series has been organised as part of the Fairville project to advance understanding and practice of community-led coproduction across the Fairville consortium, its Labs and wider ...
Fairville’s first podcast – available online in French – explores how cities can become fairer and more democratic, and how decisions that transform neighbourhoods can be made with the people who live there, rather than on their behalf. The podcast, published on 9 July 2026, features contributions from Agnès Deboulet, Barbara Lipietz, Hélène Froment and Alima El Bajnouni, who discuss the challenges and possibilities of putting residents at the heart of the decisions that shape their neighbourhoods and cities. The podcast is hosted by Université Paris 8, with technical support from Alice Forge from the Communications Department and recording by ...
On 9 April 2026, as part of the concluding activities of the Fairville project, the online seminar “Inequalities, engagement, and democracy: towards a comparative analysis across Labs” took place. The seminar provided an opportunity to discuss the relationships between inequalities, civic engagement and democracy, with the aim of contributing to the refinement of the project’s theoretical findings and promoting comparison between the experiences of Fairville Labs across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The discussion centred on the outputs of the deliverable “Mapping the impact of inequalities on political participation and the quality of democracy”, produced by K&I as part ...
In February 2026, a “Manifesto for Just and Democratic Housing in European Cities” has been published as the outcome of a participatory process developed within the Fairville project. The Manifesto was produced with the involvement of Fairville Labs, citizens’ associations, activists, professionals and researchers, and coordinated by CNRS and DPU/UCL. The process leading to the Manifesto began in 2025 and included several opportunities for discussion and collective work. Among these was a European seminar held in Roubaix as part of the “No to demolition in the Alma-Gare neighbourhood” campaign, on the occasion of World Habitat Day in October 2025. The ...
From March 31 to April 2, 2025, the Fairville project organized a workshop at the Maison de Quartier Malibran in Brussels. The initiative aimed to promote knowledge exchange among the project's partners and to open up dialogue with other organizations and networks engaged in co-production for social and environmental justice. Among the various activities, the workshop featured the presentation of an action-research study on the floods that occurred in Rue Gray (Brussels), carried out within the framework of the Fairville project. A public event was also held to showcase co-production initiatives in urban contexts, with the participation of representatives from ...
An Open Citizen Meeting on equality and urban democracy was organized in Brussels on November 7th-8th, 2023, by the EGEB, the ULB and CNRS, within the framework of the Fairville project. The event involved citizens, researchers, and professionals to discuss the critical issues raised by the project on urban challenges such as housing deterioration, urban renewal, climate hazards like flooding, waste management, and more. During the works, Alfonso Alfonsi and Maresa Berliri, from K&I, presented the results of Deliverable 1.1. of Fairville, a report which contains a reasoned and annotated repository of resources offering data relevant to the Fairville topics ...
The Kick-Off Meeting of the Fairville project was held on February 23, 2023 at the University of Nanterre. After a general presentation of the project, and some remarks onEuropean Union expectations and recommendations, the attention was first focused on the presentation of the Fairville Labs (in France, Greece, Egypt, United Kingdom, Romania, Germany, Senegal, Belgium), then on the data collection for inequalities’ impact analysis (WP1, led by K&I), the Theoretical framework for the project (WP2), the Fairville Labs/Co-production pilots (WP3), the Co-assessing Fairville labs (WP4), the Scaling of co-production practices in, to and beyond the city (WP5), the Coordination and management ...